


Make It Up as We Go Along

by Chaifootsteps



Category: The Dark Crystal (1982), The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (TV)
Genre: Alien Biology, Love Confessions, M/M, Rating is for brief canoodling., Warm and Fuzzy Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-11
Updated: 2019-11-11
Packaged: 2021-01-27 14:24:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21393652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chaifootsteps/pseuds/Chaifootsteps
Summary: SkekEkt and SekekAyuk are young, ridiculous, and only have eyes for each other. SkekEkt works himself up into a righteous tizzy over what that means.For Brains.
Relationships: skekAyuk/skekEkt (Dark Crystal)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 51





	Make It Up as We Go Along

They'd never asked one another to remain exclusive. It's certainly not why they took up in the first place.

But skekEkt had wanted to belong to someone, and to be someone _else's _forbidden fruit. SkekAyuk would have rather have been starving and alone than seen him with anyone else. It's all worked out rather nicely in that regard.

They kept to themselves in the beginning, hoarding one another like the rare fruits and exotic cheeses skekAyuk shared with no one but him, and the irreplaceable stones and feathers skekEkt allowed no one else to see, let alone touch. While the other Skeksis pair off freely and ardently, they find themselves taking to the privacy of their rooms, to back chambers and out of the way baths, to unused corridors. When the opportunity presents it, to the empty carriage.

They'll get around to it one day, they say, being sociable once more. They'll take the plunge, let the others see what they do together, flaunt each other and revel in every single moment of it. But only when they decide to share the privilege of looking, and not a moment before.

For now, only skekAyuk gets to see what a debauched picture he makes; how his feathers ripple with pleasure, how wantonly his vent stretches around skekAyuk's thick erections. How the cords of muscle stand out on skekAyuk's back and shoulders, all four arms caging him as the Gourmand pounds into him like it's the last day of their lives.

“Oh, don't stop..._don't stop._ Ruin me. Make me all yours...”

“Like that, don't you?” skekAyuk pants, knowing the name of this game and happily running with it. “Knowing that you're all mine?”

“_Mmm_, yes...”

“Is that why you're so wet for me? Everyone wishes they could have your pretty tight vent, but I'm the only one allowed to make you moan?”

“_Oh Thra, oh, oh...”_

“_Mine,” _skekAyuk growls, and nips him, marks him where it can't be covered, so everyone will know. “Mine, mine, _mine_...”

“_Yours_,” sobs skekEkt. “_Yours!”_

Thra help him, how was he ever anything else?

_ ***_

They lie in tangled sheets afterwards, skekEkt making a comfortable cushion on skekAyuk's gently rounded belly, skekAyuk's talons combing slow and thoughtful through his free flowing hair.

“...skekEkt. Satisfy my curiosity.”

“Mmm?”

“You told me the reason you never coupled with any of the others was because you wanted your first time to be interesting.”

“Memorable,” skekEkt clarifies sleepily.

“Yes, right, memorable. And I wonder...if you and I hadn't gotten together, what _would_ it have taken?”

“Oh, I have no idea. Some grandiose nonsense, knowing me. Maybe skekSil would finally succeed in sweet talking me, or someone would sweep me off my talons and then leave me the next morning...I would be satisfied enough, I _suppose,_ but they wouldn't be you.”

“Ah.”

Something about the way he says it wakes skekEkt up. He raises himself on his elbows, skekAyuk's comfortable woven sheets sliding from his hip.

“But of course, I _wouldn't_ have had it any other way. Obviously.”

“I know,” says skekAyuk, both warmly reassuring and yet, somehow, leaving the knot at the center of his stomach untouched. He presses his beak to the side of skekAyuk's, who follows the little curve until they're cheek to cheek.

“_You're _the only one I like,” he insists.

“And you're my crawlie dumpling,” skekAyuk answers, knowing it will make his feathers fluff with pure delight made manifest. Knowing, more likely than not, that it will send them straight into each other's arms, tails curled around tails, wriggling with sappy content. And so it does.

But all the same, sleep finds him long before it finds skekEkt.

***

It's not that the Ornamentalist is entirely clueless. Far from it. Ever since the first time skekAyuk made him secret cloud jam tarts and he spent what seemed the entire afternoon rolling around his bed with his tail wagging like an imbecile, he's combed every bit of information skekOk has to offer on the subject. All behind skekOk's back, of course, because the Scroll-Keeper can't keep a secret for skreesh.

He knows the Gelfling ideal is to take one partner and remain faithful to them for life. They're romantic creatures, and their songs and stories resonate on a level that unnerves him, because please, _Thra_, don't let him be falling in love like a _Gelfling._ The voluminous tomes left behind by their predecessors offer the least guidance of all; apparently, when you were an UrSkek, your partner for life was every other UrSkek. They observed the pair-bonding of monogamous species with the same poetic, yet clinical detachment they viewed everything else.

(His limited reassurance comes, from all things, the Podlings, whose romantic arrangements include as many or as few participants as makes everyone happy. Podlings might be filthy, but at least they're fun. )

If only he could talk to another Skeksis pair, he thinks. This would all be so much easier. The problem is, while everyone has their clear favorite when it comes to who they enjoy spending time with, they're awfully mum on the specifics. You can't just go up and _ask_ skekTek whether all those mysterious disappearances with the Path-Breaker means that they love each other, and he's _reasonably_ certain skekSo and skekMal don't spend their free time preening each other's feathers and giggling.

And anyhow, this all assumes skekAyuk has done the same homework, come to the same conclusions, feels the same way. He knows skekAyuk wants no one else, yes, but if there's one thing this whole complicated muddle has taught him, it's that wanting someone for yourself and...and feeling like _that_...are two _vastly _different things. Maybe he's projecting. Maybe skekAyuk's perfectly happy with their arrangement as is and he's bringing a level of..._something_ into it that's neither welcome nor wanted.

_'You're mad,'_ he tells himself. _'If anyone's ever loved you, completely and utterly, it's skekAyuk.'_

And then another voice chimes in...

_'All the more devastating if it turns out he doesn't.'_

And then, before he knows it, he's spent the morning pacing the corridor and skekTek wants to know whether he needs some fashion of medicating.

It's entirely possible that he does.

***

“You know I don't want to be with you just because I enjoy the idea of being claimed, right?!”

He blurts it out, and only by the grace of Thra does he have the presence of mind not to run it all together into one hideous mash of a word. 

SkekAyuk lifts his head from between his legs, beak wet, little brown eyes quizzical.

“What?”

Perhaps if they'd been in the thick of their usual possessive banter, skekAyuk growling his ownership into sensitive areas, skekEkt might have had an excuse. But no...skekAyuk had simply flexed his tongue the way he liked best, and when he opened his beak to vocalize his approval, _that_ was what had fallen out.

“You...you know I don't want to be with you just because I like being yours and no one else's...right?”

“Of course!” The poor Gourmand looks around, clearly deeply confused, possibly unsure as to whether he should remove skekEkt's legs from his shoulders. “You know I don't want to be with you _just _because I want you all to myself, don't you?”

“Oh no, I know that!”

“Because it's true. I enjoy everything about you. I could sit around forever doing nothing with you and be happy all my days.”

SkekEkt, as he always does when skekAyuk speaks to him this way, feels the urge to roll in on himself like a Fizzgig and hide from the world. He conceals his face behind his claws, not because of any discomfort, but because skekAyuk's adoration is too bright and beautiful to face head on.

“I feel the same way about you. You're everything to me. I...I just...”

_'There you go. Come on, now.'_

“...You're my absolute favorite thing.”

SkekAyuk nuzzles his thigh, letting skekEkt feel his smile. “Do you want me to stop?”

“Please don't.”

SkekAyuk doesn't.

***

SkekEkt has never been more grateful for a supply run in his life, and feels intensely guilty for that. Long trips away from the castle involve the dirt and sweat of travel and eating Gelfling food and, in this particular case, the first night he won't spend with skekAyuk since they started sleeping together even when their nights involve nothing but sleep. But skekEkt reasons that it will give him an opportunity to pull his head together. And even if it doesn't, it will at least be nice to busy himself with a task less introspective than sewing – picking over the textiles and assorted shining pieces the denizens of Thra trade to the castle is always _just_ fun enough to be worth the trip.

“I'll bring you back something nice,” he promises skekAyuk. “Landstrider leather for an apron?”

“Oh, please no. Makes my hands itch. But if you see any, I've heard very promising things about Nurloc hide.”

“Then Nurloc hide you shall have!”

They bid each other such a lingering goodbye that one of skekAyuk's pots begins to boil over, sending him scrambling to douse the flames and skekEkt skittering from the kitchen with a final, frantic “_Good-bye, see you very soon, adore you endlessly!_”

Not for the first time, he swears he catches the Podlings shooting gossipy Podling looks into his back. It's not exactly appreciated, but neither can he blame them.

***

The carriage ride offers him no further answers, though it does afford him time to read through two of skekOk's saucier books and start in on a third before they hit rough roads and the motion sickness forces him to stop. When that's off the table, he grouses inwardly about the fabric he chose for their already unpleasant traveling cloaks, because heavens _forbid_ the Gelfling engage them naked even if their genitals are hidden away inside. When_ that's_ ceased to keep him entertained, he reflects irritably on how the carriage isn't going any faster.

(They really _do_ need to start harnessing more than two Armaligs at a time, and preferably motivating their speed with something more dramatic than flicks about the legs and the promise of their favorite lettuces.)

By the time they reach the trading post, his neck is sore and his bone-dry mouth requires several long pulls from the traveling flask in the carriage cabinet, and then and only then is he somewhat ready to speak nicely to Gelfling.

“All laid out and ready for your lordship's inspection,” says the dark eyed director of the entire operation, whom skekEkt immediately likes for his flawless makeup and the fact that he doesn't try to touch him. “And we threw in several extra bolts of una knit as a symbol of our appreciation. Now that the lords have granted us a cure for White Lung, we can settle closer to the swamp, pull harvests more abundant than ever before!”

“Oh, you needn't have, you needn't have. I'll take it, certainly, but when you Gelfling thrive, we thrive.”

Which is true, even if he _is _sore and cranky and wishing they didn't have such profoundly creepy little hands.

Once he's inside and among the selection, however, skekEkt forgets he was ever distressed over anything else at any point in his existence. He wanders among the rolls of laces and satins, the scales and leathers and shed teeth collected for their ivory; palming them all with reverence, already mentally jumping ahead to which ones are getting used in gifts and which ones will never, ever be leaving the confines of his room.

“Stunning, impeccable,” he coos, caressing a delicate lock of Spipen down, perfect for stuffing pillows. “You acquired everything on my list!”

For the first time, the Gelfling's smile falters. SkekEkt's not so engrossed in the euphoria of new fabrics that he misses the cautious darting of his eyes. “Well...very nearly everything.”

“Ornamentalist!”

It's a voice skekEkt would recognize dead, had he been capable of death. And just like that, his happy radiant bubble pops.

“Mother Aughra!” he says with a strained smile, turning to see her stumping his way. It's not that he doesn't _like_ the vessel of Thra, who's been a friend to the Skeksis since the very first day, nearly, and can be quite fun if you catch her in the right mood. Just...not on supply runs. Not hovering over every piece of precious material, touching it with her unwashed hands, making sure it's humanely sourced and gathered from the cast off remnants of living animals and all such other things that make Thra ever so happy. “I thought you would have already been and gone.”

“Hah! You'd like that, wouldn't you? Had to make sure you're not asking too much.” She gives the Gelfling a stern look. “And traders aren't _giving too much._”

He bolts. SkekEkt huffs.

“So then, you_ still_ don't trust me.”

“Trusted you once!” She waves her staff about, close enough to his beak that he's forced to lean back with an afflicted whine. “Rare birds, birds that mate for life, lay eggs once and no more...all slaughtered for your little projects. A tragedy that Thra will take trine to recover from!”

“I didn't--”

“I know, I know. You didn't know. So now, here we are! No more worrying about what you know or don't know, eh?” The face skekEkt's pulling must be less discrete than he believes it to be, because she waves her hand. “Oh, don't pout at me. Come. Sit with Aughra. When was the last time I saw you in the sunlight?”

They sit in the golden tint of the Three Brothers in their descent, watching skekEkt's beloved fabrics loaded for the return journey. She cajoles him about castle life, asks on his peers until he forgets he's annoyed with her, and he in turn asks her about her time in the Orrery and nods politely along when she gives him what is clearly the Condensed for Ornamentalists version.

“...Speaking of birds that mate for life.”

“Yes?”

“I was wondering if you could slake a certain curiosity I had about...you know. The other ones.”

“You want to ask the Mystics a question, go and ask them yourselves. They'd be thrilled.”

“You know very well I can't!” That's all he needs, a lecture on the joys of eating gruel and the shame of enjoying an identity separate from the UrSkeks. “Would _you_ ask the Mystics for an important answer if you could get it exactly anywhere else?”

“...Hmph, fair point. So what's your question?”

“I was wondering if they ever...paired off among themselves. Not in _that _sense of the word. But did they ever, oh, I don't know? Choose each other? The way Gelfling do?”

“Marriage?”

“Maybe. Not necessarily. I suppose, what I'm asking, is...you know...” She stares at him evenly, and the absurdity of it doesn't escape him; she's been present at their orgies and yet when it comes to this, he has to rush it out like an obscene word he expects to be scolded for. “Whether they fall in love.”

“Ahhh. To tell you the truth...no clue. The Mystics don't carry on the way you all at the castle do, but they're still Mystics together. Sleep together, eat together...and yes, enjoy each other very freely. Really, you're more alike than all of you think.” He huffs, but just a little, and she doesn't push the matter. “But if any of them have chosen each other among all other Mystics...well, they're keeping it a secret from Aughra.”

SkekEkt's heart sinks. “I was afraid of that.”

“But who knows? Mystics are made of secrets, could very well be keeping it a secret from Aughra. Maybe taking their time, or may still yet decide to. Have to remember how very brief a time you've all been around.”

“...The UrSkeks never felt anything of the kind. Or if they did, they never felt the need to write it down. I often wonder if they even possessed the ability.”

“Well, you do a great many things the UrSkeks never did.” She peers closely at him, and while skekEkt is often beset by the suspicion that she could look right through him if she desired, there's a gentleness in that eye that keeps him from changing the subject or fussing off to pretend he has a problem with the way the Gelfling are packing his supplies. “Come now, tell Aughra. Someone caught your eye?”

“Well past that point, if we're being frank. And it's...well, it's marvelous. Truly it is. I'm never happier than when I'm with him, and I don't want to..._be_ with anybody else. I haven't the faintest idea whether that constitutes...” In lieu of finishing, he waves a hand about, gesturing at nothing. “You really don't know _anything_ about how it's working out for the Mystics? At the very least, whether the one I'm tethered to is experiencing any of this?”

“UrUtt and I talk about weaving and the weather.”

“Of course.”

“But what would it matter if we didn't? Supposing he is trundling about with the other half of _your _other half. Or someone completely different. Supposing he's run off with a Fizzgig! You're not urUtt, not today. So forget about Mystics. Tell me about this companion of yours. Tell me what you like about him.”

SkekEkt draws a deep breath. It's not a matter of what, but knowing where to begin.

“I think the others assume he lured me in with tidbits, but no, that's a small fragment of it. It's the artistry of what he does, how utterly beautiful he makes it. Even when I haven't the stomach to watch him carving up a head, it's still a beautiful thing, somehow. And the way his entire face lights up when he starts in on explaining it, with those lovely dark eyes of his, and the feathers around his neck lift just ever so slightly...and then I'll go off on a tangent about sewing, and if there's another Skeksis out there who likes sewing, please point them to me, because no one in the castle does...but he's always there, always following along. And he makes me laugh. Oh, Thra, I've never had _anyone_ who made me laugh the way he does, to the point of seeing me breathless on the ground. He has a ridiculous laugh, but it's freeing, you know, the UrSkeks never laughed, and I suppose I could laugh with anyone, but everything gets more fun when I'm with him. He makes me feel like the center of the universe. And he has that soft stomach, but those broad, powerful arms, and his little beak, the way he always has to lean up so that we can touch beaks, and the way he smiles all the way up into his cheeks, and the way he smells like pie...”

SkekEkt stops, suddenly vividly, alarmingly aware of what he's doing. But Aughra is smiling her rough shadow of a smile.

She pats him on the hand.

"All that overthinking for nothing. You're going to be just fine.”

***

The next day, they travel early so as to be home early. SkekEkt – who if not entirely comforted, is no longer worrying himself senseless – watches the forests and fields roll by for as long as he takes to tire of their novelty, then sprawls across the cushions and naps to the gentle patter of the rain on the carriage roof.

He's awoken by the carriage stopping so abruptly, it sends him screeching to the floor.

_'This is it,'_ is his first thought. _'This is an attack and I'm done for, skekSo, you wretched parasite, this is why we need proper escorts, you would have hired proper escorts if it were you, I hope you rot and I hope it hurts--'_

But it quickly becomes apparent that he's not about to be gutted by brigands. In fact, if he looks out the window, he can just make out the silhouette of the castle through the pouring rain. When he mashes the button to prod the Armalig, he feels the lurch of the carriage as they try, then hears the dismayed warbling as they give up.

“Oh, in the name of all that is...”

No guards. They had better have been picked off by some large predator, because if skekSo did that _thing_ where he compensates them only as far as Stone-in-the-Wood so he doesn't have to put them up for the night, there are going to be _words. _He doesn't have to stick his head out the door and brave the rain to have a very fair idea of what's wrong, but brave the rain he does. And sure enough, there it is – the back Armalig unfurled and floundering in what seems to be a lake of mud while the front one tries in vain to look around and see what's happening. SkekEkt thinks they're both making excuses.

“Walk, you! Do you know what that means? Walk! What's the point of an Armalig-driven carriage if you can't walk us out of trouble?”

He gives them several more prods, at which point it becomes clear that rolling up submerges the hind one's face in muddy water. He's furiously wracking his brains for another option when the problem Armalig, unsettled by a weight on its back and water on all sides, scrambles out from beneath the harness and makes a break for the nearby treeline.

“Oh no, no, no, _no!_” SkekEkt cries shrilly. He can only watch in horror as the runaway's carriage-mate, either out of loyalty to its companion or simply under the impression that they're done here, abandons its harness and follows the other into the rain. “_Don't you dare!_”

But it dares. And skekEkt can do little more than shout at their retreating shells until he can no longer see them, all the while wishing them a cold, miserable life together.

He gives the rain an hour to break. Another hour for someone in the castle to realize something's amiss and send help. It's only then, with night falling and the eerie cries of the forest at his back that he pulls his traveling robes over his head, wades out into the frigid mud and, nearly in tears, sets out up the path towards home.

The stable Podlings are the first and only ones to greet him, exclaiming in alarm when he enters soaking wet and sans carriage.

“Down the road, in the mud,” he says, fangs chattering, voice teetering dangerously on the edge of a breakdown. Hoping, with no small edge of desperation, that the other Skeksis have put the storm and his absence together, and if not, that at the very least, the very, **very **least, they're not in the middle of an orgy.

They aren't, but they are lounging around with drinks, playing fire stones and toasting comfortably before the same fire they're using to burn the stones. SkekEkt almost wishes they'd been in the middle of an orgy.

“You're certainly home late,” says skekOk.

“And tracking mess,” puts in skekSil.

SkekEkt stamps deliberately across their game, discarding his cold, sodden robes on them in the process, and never looking back when they squawk like the animals they are.

He makes his way to the kitchens without assurance that skekAyuk will necessarily even be there, going solely on the fact that the Skeksis haven't commenced their evening gorging. And thankfully, _mercifully_, there he is, throwing something minced into a Podling manned pot.

“SkekEkt!” he says, wiping his hands on his apron as he hurries over, his concern the first correct thing anybody's done for skekEkt all evening. “Thra's name, what happened? Are you all right?”

“The carriage broke down in the rain,” skekEkt says, so pathetic even to his own ears that it would be hilarious if it were absolutely anybody else. Indeed, skekAyuk ducks his head in what may or may not be an effort not to laugh, but it's forgivable, it's skekAyuk, and anyway, he's taking him by the claw and pulling him deeper into the warmth of the kitchen.

“Come here,” he says with deep affection, and skekEkt goes, muddy claws and all. Stacked just far enough away from the ovens to avoid a fire hazard is a lineup of the thick, plush towels he himself sewed, drinking in the heat. SkekAyuk drapes one over his shoulders, dries his hair with another, his hair and then the soft, soaked feathers of his neck, around his eyes. “I've got a trick, solis seed in hot water. You just stick your feet in. Make you feel like you'll never be cold again--”

“I love you.”

SkekAyuk's hands freeze.

“...Come again?”

SkekEkt, wet hair in his face and makeup running and bearing a striking resemblance to a soaked Stonewood hen, just looks at him through baleful eyes and says--

“I love you. So much. You're the only one for me. You always have been.”

At first, skekAyuk simply smiles. Slowly, slowly, like he's taking it in...smiles, all the way up into his cheeks. And then skekEkt can't see his smile at all, pulled down into a rubbing of beaks so jubilant, it both smears what's left of his polish and eclipses the world.

“You wonderful, silly..._I love you too._”

SkekEkt, out of sheer, utter relief and perhaps just a small measure of hysteria, breaks out laughing. And that gets them _both_ laughing, until something wild and sunlit bursts through the ice and skekAyuk, despite their considerable height difference, lifts him effortlessly and spins him clear around. SkekEkt shrieks, but has never wanted to resist anything less.

(It's a miracle nothing breaks. The Podlings mutter something inevitable amongst themselves.)

Claws returned to the ground, skekEkt wipes his eyes with a wrist, sniffling hopelessly. “If I'd known it would be that simple, I'd have said it ages ago!”

SkekAyuk is grinning, eyes shining more than slightly. “I'm willing to make up for lost time if you are.”

So skekEkt says it again. And again. Suspecting, strongly, that it's only ever going to grow easier from here on out.

He's right.


End file.
